Two videos of the same Grey Wagtail today, as you don't generally get such a good chance to film one. It was looking for insects among the algae and duckweed under the Italian Garden fountains, which you can hear in the background.
It preened on a reed stem.
But that's not all that was happening here. Ahmet Amerikali was at the other end of the waterfront, where a band of Cormorants was fishing furiously, and he got two dramatic pictures. A Cormorant struggled to subdue a pike it had caught.
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Encouraged by the activity, some Black-Headed Gulls joined in and one of them caught a perch. It did actually catch it in the water, not snatch it from a Cormorant.
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Farther down the Long Water, the leaning and rotten Lombardy poplar at Peter Pan has lost its largest branch ...
... which was lying in the lake.
This is where it broke off, showing how rotten the wood is and the Poplar Fieldcap mushrooms that have spread the rot. It probably won't be long before the rest of the tree goes.
A flight of Long-Tailed Tits in the Flower Walk provided a couple of pictures.
A Blue Tit that was with them perched in a horse chestnut tree showing the ravages of the Leaf Miner Moth larvae. These provide food for the bird, of course, and you often see Blue Tits investigating the underside of horse chestnut leaves where the larvae gather.
The Coal Tit in the Dell collected a pine nut from the railings.
To complete the set, a Great Tit looked out from a rose bush in the Rose Garden.
A Robin waited in an oak by the bridge.
The swimming event, which in previous years has lasted two days, was over in one and peace returned to the Serpentine. It will take a few days to clear up the mess.
The Czech Black-Headed Gull looked down imperiously from his favourite post at the east end of the lake.
I wondered why this Lesser Black-Backed Gull eating a pigeon by the Dell restaurant was surrounded by hungry young gulls wanting to snatch it. Pigeon Eater would have chased them away at once. But a still picture I took, more zoomed in, shows that this is not Pigeon Eater -- it's another gull that has been hunting on his territory while he was away. It seems to have a mate, which comes in at the end of the video.
The single Great Crested Grebe chick was here, now starting to dive after its parents, and also to look for small items of food itself. It caught what were probably insect larvae.
The lone Mute cygnet and its mother were also present.
A crowd of Cormorants at the island used every available place to stand.
A Buff-Tailed Bumblebee in the Rose Garden, unable to reach into the long tubular flowers of baby sage, used its sharp proboscis to piece the base of the flower and extract the nectar.
A late Painted Lady butterfly rested on a dead leaf by the Serpentine Gallery.
I don't think it is such a bad thing for a fallen tree to land in water, with more positives than negatives on it. It makes an undercover feature for fishes, habitat creation, food source and perching for birds. Although it can be harmful with its decaying and oxygen consumption, which really sort of outweighs all the good I suppose.
ReplyDeleteSean
Good to see the Painted Lady. Haven't seen one for a few weeks here. Last week I was in Lesvos & only managed to see two there in one place & just a single Clouded Yellow.
ReplyDeleteThey seem to have a very long flying season, like the much commoner Specked Wood. Perhaps they too overwinter as both larvae and pupae?
DeleteApparently only one proven record some years back of an over-wintering Painted Lady in the mildest part of the country, Cornwall. They are continuously brooded & don't have a diapause phase like most species.
DeleteI think Clouded Yellows have been able to successfully survive on the undercliffs in Dorset in small numbers but otherwise unable to survive our winters, so both species need to arrive each year. I did see 2 UK Clouded yellows this year-one on my local Sunday patch & the other on the North Downs near Dorking. Was so pleased to see these as the previous two years were a blank for me after several consecutive years of sightings.
Thank you for the interesting information about the Painted Lady.
DeleteAs for winter survival of vulnerable species, I wonder whether the heat island of London, whose difference from the surrounding countryside continues to increase, will become more of a haven for them.
Certainly a possibility Ralph. Things are changing fast in the natural world as our climate changes.
DeleteWonderful, wonderful videos of the Grey Wagtail. In the first one it almost looks as if it was walking on water!!
ReplyDeleteI wonder what hunting technique the gull temporarily occupying Pigeon Eater's dominions has. Did you see it catch the pigeon?
I'd never have thought smaller gulls were able to catch live fish, but here we are.
Tinúviel
I've seen Pied Wagtails, which are lighter than Grey Wagtails, running over the surface of floating algae, and they could stay on the surface if they kept moving. But I think this Grey Wahrail always had a bit of solid floating debris under its feet.
DeleteNo, I didn't see how that Lesser Black-Back got the pigeon. It might even have been one of Pigeon Eater's leftovers, perhaps his second catch of the day when he didn't eat much of it. But there's no doubt that other gulls have seen Pigeon Eater at work and are trying to copy him, seldom successfully.